hogwild
New Member
Hello everyone! I just thought I would make this post for anyone who is considering a biocube! I have lots of prior experience with reef keeping and multiple self started and self built salt water aquariums. I tend to do things the old school way so I had never been attracted to an all in one system. However there was a deal at Petco for a 16 gal biocube for only 190 dollars. Knowing I would set the tank up with water from my other tanks and supply’s I had sitting around… I couldn’t help myself and I impulsively purchased. I wanted to make a comprehensive review of everything I thought, and if I would actually recommend it for a beginner. My tank is now at the 9 month mark and honestly… I’m more impressed with it than I thought I would be . First off I was actually pretty ok with the lighting set up with that being said my expectations for this tank were to house 2 clowns for grow out and a couple soft corals Xenia’s ,and macro algae and with that it has exceeded my expectations! I think the app that you control the lighting on is easy to use and that the factory settings are actually pretty nice, I would wish for more control with rgb spectrums but I didn’t expect that with something this cheap honestly. I cycled the tank with some old ceramic media from my 4 year old reef tank, and used water from that tank to fill up with some beneficial bacteria, the one I used was microbe lift special blend. I also built my own rack for additional filtration foam and filter floss. I do not use any reactors or phosphate removers or carbon As I often deem them useless for these types of simple applications. The filtration is not bad, with me adding additional media and more compartments that really helped with the beneficial bacteria and stability of the system. I have seen others add additional wave makers to this tank, but when I did that I noticed the flow was FAR to aggressive and did not help anything, so I opted out, if I decide to add more coral in the future maybe that will change, but for now the pump that came with it is all I have. The tank took a month to cycle fully with me adding fish right at the 1 month mark. I do caution beginners to maybe not move this fast, as I had a lot of media, sand, and rock from filly established systems that were years old. After I added fish the water was testing perfectly normal and stayed stable for another month, that’s when I added coral, here is the comprehensive list of all the species of coral I have added to this tank. Please note, some of these corals are LPS, I will notate that next to the name, I hear a lot of mixed reviews about the par levels for the lighting in this tank and… I personally haven’t had issues with any of the lps I have added, but again most of the lps are just cuttings from large colony’s in my big tank.. so it’s not like I’m throwing money away by trying them out. Here’s what I have
Pom Pom Xenia
Assorted Zoanthids
Green star polyps
Pipe organ LPS
Duncan LPS
Kenya trees
Long polyp leather
And some other assorted leathers and sinularia I got from my other tanks.
Here’s what the tank progressed like with pictures at each month mark.
I hope this helps someone who is considering purchasing a biocube. I really like this system and actually am buying a 32 biocube for my desk this Christmas. I think the most important thing I could say for someone who wants this tank is that you need to have expectations for a sub par setup. These are not good lights.. and you will probably only be able to stock toilet bowl coral or some easy LPS. I have not tried any euphillia corals in this tank mostly due to thier sensitivity in lighting and water parameters. My parameters are extremely stable but I am going to wait to throw anything like that in until the tank hits a year.
Pom Pom Xenia
Assorted Zoanthids
Green star polyps
Pipe organ LPS
Duncan LPS
Kenya trees
Long polyp leather
And some other assorted leathers and sinularia I got from my other tanks.
Here’s what the tank progressed like with pictures at each month mark.
I hope this helps someone who is considering purchasing a biocube. I really like this system and actually am buying a 32 biocube for my desk this Christmas. I think the most important thing I could say for someone who wants this tank is that you need to have expectations for a sub par setup. These are not good lights.. and you will probably only be able to stock toilet bowl coral or some easy LPS. I have not tried any euphillia corals in this tank mostly due to thier sensitivity in lighting and water parameters. My parameters are extremely stable but I am going to wait to throw anything like that in until the tank hits a year.
